BORIS TRIGGERS TORY MAYHEM
12 MPs vow to keep him out of No10 after ‘suicide vest’ jibe at May Was former Tory PR chief ousted over her relationship with Johnson?
AT leAsT a dozen Tory MPs are ready to quit the party to stop Boris Johnson becoming leader.
They issued the warning last night after he sparked outrage by saying Theresa May’s Brexit strategy had put Britain in a suicide vest and handed the detonator to Brussels.
Mr Johnson’s critics accused him of using disgusting language to distract attention from his private life. He is being divorced by long-suffering wife Marina over claims of another affair.
Yesterday he faced fresh revelations about his relationship with Carrie Symonds, who abruptly quit as Tory communications director last month.
With the Conservatives descending into open warfare, allies of Mr Johnson hit back, accusing No10 of orchestrating a smear campaign with the leak of a ‘dirty dossier’ on his love life.
But Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan, who served as Mr Johnson’s deputy, yesterday described him as an ‘irresponsible wrecker’ and vowed to stop him becoming party leader.
Sarah Wollaston, Tory chairman of the Commons health committee, yesterday became the fourth MP to warn publicly
that she would resign from the party if Mr Johnson toppled Mrs May.
A senior Tory said 12 or more MPs would refuse to serve under the former foreign secretary – effectively depriving the Government of a majority.
‘Boris will never be prime minister – he would split the party,’ the MP said. ‘There are a large number of us determined to make sure he does not get on to the ballot paper whenever the leadership contest takes place.
‘If he did somehow manage to win then there are many of us – well into double figures – who would resign the party whip. He would lose the Government’s majority. He could not govern.’ The row came as: Downing Street faced questions about whether Miss Symonds had been forced out of her job because of revelations about her closeness to Mr Johnson;
Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid and International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt paraded their pro-Brexit credentials amid talk of a leadership contest;
David Davis prepared to unveil an alternative Brexit plan based on a technological solution to the Northern Ireland border issue;
No10 launched a fresh charm offensive with MPs in a bid to win support for Mrs May’s Chequers plan;
Tory MP Nadine Dorries, an ally of Mr Johnson, said Miss Symonds appeared to have become ‘collateral damage’ in Downing Street’s war with him.
Mr Johnson had been on the back foot following revelations last week that his
‘Opened ourselves to blackmail’
25-year marriage to Miss Wheeler was over. But yesterday he went on the attack with an incendiary article in which he renewed his criticism of the Prime Minister’s handling of Brexit.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he said Mrs May had allowed the Northern Ireland issue to become ‘grossly inflated’.
He warned Brexit would fail unless she tore up the so-called ‘backstop’ agreed with the EU last December, which would keep Northern Ireland in the customs union. Mr Johnson described the Chequers plan, which would require Britain to follow a common rulebook with the EU, as a humiliation.
‘We look like a seven-stone weakling being comically bent out of shape by a 500lb gorilla,’ he said. ‘We have opened ourselves to perpetual political blackmail. We have wrapped a suicide vest around the British constitution – and handed the detonator to Michel Barnier.’
Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, savaged Mr Johnson’s intervention and told him to grow up.
‘A suicide bomber murdered many in the courtyard of my office in Helmand,’ said the former Army officer. ‘The carnage was disgusting, limbs and flesh hanging from trees and bushes.
‘Brave men who stopped him killing me and others died in horrific pain. Some need to grow up. Comparing the PM to that isn’t funny.’
Sir Alan said: ‘For Boris to say that the PM’s view is like that of a suicide bomber is too much. This marks one of the most disgusting moments in modern British politics. I’m sorry, but this is the political end of Boris Johnson. If it isn’t now, I will make sure it is later.’
Home Secretary Mr Javid urged Mr Johnson to use ‘measured language in future’, adding: ‘There are much better ways to articulate your differences.’
But allies of Mr Johnson rallied to his defence. MP Zac Goldsmith said there were ‘a number of possible motives’ for Sir Alan’s attack but ‘given its author, we can be certain principles aren’t one of them’.
Mrs Dorries said Mr Johnson faced vitriol because rivals were terrified of his popular appeal.
Ross Thomson, another Eurosceptic Tory, accused No10 of trying to smear Mr Johnson, following the leak of a ‘black book’ on him.
Drawn up by a member of Mrs May’s team during the 2016 leadership election, the 4,000-word dossier details Mr Johnson’s affairs with journalists Petronella Wyatt and Anna Fazackerley and socialite Helen Macintyre, with whom he had a love child. Downing Street sources angrily denied that they were involved in the leaking of the document to the media.
Miss Wheeler could serve divorce papers on Mr Johnson as early as today, citing his ‘adultery’. According to The Sun she has ‘had enough’ and wants to move on quickly.
Mr Johnson made no mention of his private life in his column in today’s Daily Telegraph.
Instead, he took the opportunity to call for post-Brexit Britain to embrace its independence from the European Union
He argued that more money needed to be spent on the NHS, police and schools – but not through tax rises – in what could be interpreted as setting out his stall as a future leader.
ARE the Tories determined to hand Jeremy Corbyn the keys to Downing Street?
We ask because they give every impression of being so obsessed with internecine feuding that they are about to implode.
And if they can’t even govern themselves, why should voters trust them to govern the country at the next election?
The latest carnage began with a typically maladroit attack by Boris Johnson on Theresa May and her Chequers Brexit plan.
By crassly saying the proposals would wrap the British constitution ‘in a suicide vest’, he offended everyone from victims of terror attacks to veterans of Afghanistan.
He also served to widen gaping Tory divisions at this delicate time in our Brexit negotiations.
One can understand the ex-Foreign Secretary’s desire to move the agenda away from the latest embarrassing revelations about his private life – including his close relationship with Carrie Symonds, formerly a leading Tory spin doctor.
But to do it in such an incendiary way was simply reckless. And it feeds into the characterisation of Mr Johnson as an egomaniac, more interested in his own ambition than the good of party or country.
The truth is that this paper shares some of his reservations about the Chequers plan – not least because there’s no guarantee that it will be accepted either by the European Commission or Parliament.
But with just over six months until we leave the EU, it is our best – possibly our only – template for an orderly withdrawal, with time later to address its imperfections.
The alternative may be chaos, a general election and the very real prospect of a ruinous Corbyn-led government. Is that really a risk any self-respecting Tory is prepared to take?